Page 11 of Close Protection

She turns the key in the ignition and the old Volvo grumbles back to life. The trooper stops the vehicles in the slow lane and she pulls out without any difficulty. She drives for one mile until she hits the next exit and then gets off at the slip road. South is the hospital where they can maybe fix her but she doesn’t care about that now. That’s utterly irrelevant. Getting Kylie back is the sun and the stars and the entire universe.

She takes I-95 northbound, pushing the Volvo harder than it has ever been pushed in its life.

Into the slow lane, into the medium lane, into the fast lane.

Sixty miles an hour, sixty-five miles an hour, seventy, seventy-five, seventy-eight, eighty.

The engine is screaming but all Rachel can think isGo, go, go.

Her business now is north. Get a bank loan. Get the burner phones. Get a gun and everything else she needs to get Kylie back.

5

Thursday, 9:01 a.m.

It had all happened so fast. A gunshot and then they had driven off. Driven for how long? Kylie had lost track. Maybe seven or eight minutes before they had turned onto a smaller road, gone down a long driveway, and stopped. The woman had taken a picture of her and gotten out to make a phone call. Probably to her mom or dad.

Kylie’s in the back seat of the car with the man. He is breathing hard, swearing under his breath, and making strange animal-like whimpering noises.

Shooting the policeman was clearly not part of the plan and he isn’t handling it well.

Kylie hears the woman come back to the car.

“OK, it’s done. She understands everything and knows what she has to do,” the woman says. “Take this one down to the basement and I’ll hide the car.”

“OK,” the man replies meekly. “You have to get out, Kylie. I’ll open the door for you.”

“Where are we going?” Kylie asks.

“We’ve set up a little room for you. Don’t be worried,” the man says. “You’ve done very well so far.”

She feels the man reach over her and unclick her seat belt. His breath is acrid and repulsive. The door opens next to her.

“Keep your blindfold on; I have a gun pointed at you,” the woman says.

Kylie nods.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Move!” the woman says in a shrill, hysterical voice.

Kylie swings her legs out of the car and starts to get up.

“Watch your head, please,” the man mutters.

She stands slowly, carefully. She listens for highway traffic or any other noise, but she doesn’t hear anything. No cars, no birds, no familiar Atlantic breakers. They are somewhere well inland.

“This way,” the man says. “I’m going to take your arm and lead you downstairs. Don’t try anything. There’s nowhere you can go and we’re both prepared to shoot you, OK?”

She nods.

“Answer him,” the woman insists.

“I won’t try anything,” she says.

She hears a bolt being dragged back and a door being opened.

“Careful, these stairs are old and sort of steep,” the man says.

Kylie walks slowly down the wooden stairs while the man holds her by the elbow. When she gets to the bottom of the steps, she can feel that she’s standing on concrete. Her heart sinks. If it had been a crawl space like the one beneath her house, she would have had just dirt and sand underfoot. You could dig your way through dirt and sand. You couldn’t dig your way through concrete.